If your toddler loves to fingerpaint but you worry about the mess, here’s the perfect solution: Get messy exactly where you’re going to clean off afterwards!

To wit, I stripped Veronika down to her diaper and sat her in a dry bathtub, then squirted generous amounts of fingerpaint on the tub walls. I used blue, yellow and green, which meant we had the possibility of playing with all three separately, or watching the blue and yellow combine into a new green.

Veronika was hesitant at first, but the colors soon proved irresistible. Once her hands were messy, she began making big smears on the walls. She loved making a big mess with it…

…but also loved being more deliberate, dipping in one finger and then swirling color carefully on the tub or the tiles.

Or admiring the way the colors looked on her fingers.

It all looked like so much fun that big brother Travis jumped in to paint, too!

When her masterpiece was complete, I pressed a piece of newspaper over the fingerpaint, allowing us to capture a memento of the project.

Needless to say we made a huge mess.

But we were exactly where we needed to be to rinse off…kids and tub both!